Added: 4 years ago
From: Vettestrat
Views: 125,463
Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:

All Comments (181)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • he'd have been kicked out of Guitar Center doing that...Sorry..I'm just not seeing (hearing) it..

  • Comment removed

  • sorry I didnt see your post Ill check it out

  • I keep trying to find a video that has JS kicking ass but I just dont seem ti find any where as everything pat matheny dose is off the charts I guess I just dont like JS phrasing his choice of notes has never moved me and I remember feeling the same way thirty years ago check out when hes playing with pat martino they seem like there from different worlds send me a video u think is good Ill check it out

  • god bless you john but your highly over rated

  • @TheMajoto Overrated? What do you mean? He an Pat Metheny, where the first guitar player starting to phrase like saxophone players! They where the first ones to see harmony in the same way as saxophone and trumpet player. How is he overrated? He was also one of the earliest to blend rock technique with jazz phrasing an time. Explain how he is overrated to me?

  • For the non-believers: check this one and you'll find yourself convinced

    /watch?v=3GcZ-gujCM4

  • there are clear changes in this solo, he gives you just enough to follow it every couple of bars if you listen. The tone is half camera phone low quality and half intentional. If you've seen/heard most of his music like any other great guitar player he chooses the sound he wants.

  • Comment removed

  • I know (and I also think) this is an incredible musician, but I trully don't get the idea of this weird solo at all. I listened to all kind of weird stuff out there, but nothing like this. I'm not saying it's bad or low quality, the tone is very unique and also the notes he chooses, but I just personally don't like it.

  • love him greatly

  • Scofield is phenomenal - his Heaven Hill is one of my all time favorite jazz guitar piece.I know he likes this guitar because it gets tones he can't get on other instruments...hmm... I've heard him playing a Tele - the instrument he started out on... it would be nice to hear him on a Gibson jazz box... maybe he has played one... I'll check his other clips. If Scofield was good enough for Miles - speaks for itself - he's as good as it gets.

  • Love it, Scofield has such an unexpected phrasing. New every time. And his faces are unique too :)

  • I know you all love this guy, but I honestly fail to recognize the genius in it. I can't stand the tones he uses, and the twinky whiny sound. I know... flamesuit ON. LOL.

  • @gingervytis "but I honestly fail to understand the genius in it. I can't understand the tones he uses and the unique sound."

    fixed.

  • Amazing solo on You Don't Know What Love Is.

  • Ever the experimenter, at this show Scofield tried to find the point at which he could play utter shite and still have jazz fanbois saying it was great.

  • man I've found it like 2 years ago and I'm still coming back to this video

  • what the FUCK is up with you jacking the VOLUME up all the way to a million??

  • Don't cry John! Oh... I thought he was gonna cry, lol.

  • lol good joke! :D

  • John Scofield, The master of the bridge pickup

  • music is like a fine wine, it betters with age

  • at the 0:15-0:20 second mark he throws a little Mozart's Turkish March in there, heh

  • When does the music begin?

  • You Don't Know What Love Is is the name of the tune he is playing - hes out there but at the same time its all there!

    Sco & Beck are masters of intrigue

  • Sco is sick!!!!

  • Scofield has many many sides. This may not be the most accessible. But man, his lines are something else. There is hardly a more melodic improvisor on guitar.

  • Some of the rhythms he puts out there and his masterful manipulation of dissonance is simply ridiculous, It makes me go mentally insane, honestly, like my mind explodes...But I love every second of it...every single second...Nobody brings the funk like he does...I don't even consider him a Jazz guitarist even though he absolutely is...That's how versatile this guy is as a musician.

  • So many people raging at others who express their opinions. It's not hard to see why a lot of people don't "get" Sco, he's hardly an "ordinary" jazz guitarist.

    Take that as you may, i, personally, am not his biggest fan, though some of his stuff with Patt is decent.

  • INCREIBLE! .. que feeling

  • Truly COSMIC ;-)

    Almost as good as "Eric Clapton Shreds" (search YT)

  • FUCK YOU

  • Funny!!

  • Ok. I love jazz, and I love jazz guita (Wes Montgomery, Django, Charlie Christian, Derek Trucks, Kenny Burrell, Alan Holdsworth, I promise that I'm not totally ignorant.) But I just don't get John Scofield.

  • It's "honk"-ey. He has sounds you don't hear anywhere else. What's not to get?

  • You're summing up a nice bunch of folks that "SING" when they play. You might say that Scofield rather "TALKS" when he plays.

    Get used to the angular way of phrasing that defines his voice on the guitar and you will start appreciating "The Sco".

  • have you listened to actual albums he plays on? Hes not really hard to "get"

  • His guitar playing does like a ground n' pound on your brains, I know...But this is why I love him, He absolutely hurts my ears most of the time but he does it in an intriguing way with his rhythm and dissonance...He's a far out there guitar player but his phrasings are completely original and his Funkiness is on a level never before reached by humans until he arrived.

  • yall need to shut up and buy a sco record

  • So many people ripping" Sco"that a shame,check out the man's track record .Why do we have to make it so hard for famous musicians to express themselves musically or even go to a music store to try something new,we're so fast to say that they've lost it,why are we that way?

  • You can really see the emotion in his facial expressions and movements.. it's almost as if he is trying to communicate something from deep within his soul to the crowd. I find this purely enjoyable.

  • The first time I watched this I did think it sounded awful and too weird but I came back and watched it again and understood this out-of-context clip better when using an unbiased ear. He's not just fooling around.

  • Can anyone tell me what model that Matchless amp is that John is using?

  • Found it! the Chieftain.

  • can't wait to hear the following:

    - post something better, faggot.

    - you have no idea what music is.

    - you're ignorant

    - why go on videos and comment on things you don't like?

    - you wish you could play like him

    - FUCK YOU, durrrrr

  • It might sound better if we could hear the accompanying musicians. Jazz solos arise from a collaborative process. I agree that on it's own, the solo seems a bit random. But YouTube videos don't always have the best audio (understatement.)

  • The first time I saw Sco was in a very small club standing 5 feet directly in front of him. He broke into a free jazz solo improv that was much faster and dynamic than this one. This really doesn't do him any justice IMHO.

  • I think he's playing the standard "You don't know what Love is". Sounds Amazing!

  • Lol nobody knows Metheny huh? Lol ok ill better check him to find out how good he is. Because nobody knows Metheny, let's all check him. Is that Metheny guy a new star? Because Scofield is like one of the Jazz superstars and a guitar hero, maybe the Metheny guy that we have to check out will make him retire.

    PD lol

  • wat do u mean??????

  • check outtt george benson nastiest jazzist guitarist

  • Yeah, Metheny I've heard that name ;). I hear he's not too bad. Young up and coming guy right? ;)

  • Lol it seems nobody understood my comment except you hehe. I already have a minus 2.

    It's funny to hear people name very known guitarrists for all of us like saying we only like scofield because we haven't checked metheny or benson yet. Lol, nice day mate :)

  • Ha ha, that comment made my day. Really funny=)

  • Hehe thanks. I hope people will avoid doing that comments, well, if they don't want to been seen as total arrogant noobs. It's like going to a football channel and saying "Hey loosers, you seem to enjoy Ronaldinho huh! well check out a guy named Maradona, yeah! he is a small argentinian player, really good" or for chess fans "Kasparov? Well check out this guy Mijail Tal, cool sacrifices, you don't know nothing bros!" So people don't tell us to check out Joe Pass or McLaughlin, etc.

  • damn, there is definitely some intensely convoluted structure to what he just played, and it was intensely awesome

  • Comment removed

  • Wonderful, what a genious.

  • i think a lot of "traditional" guitar player/listeners are turned off by his tone and/or vocabulary on the instrument. repeated listening will endear him to you.

  • What the hell are you talking about??!!

  • haha, good joke!

    sco is a genius. But it takes genius to hear genius hehe

  • no it doesn't...

  • it does..!!

  • I think Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is taking notes

  • haha! you dont know what love is!, Niiiiiiice

  • ganoush,be fair....he's not shit....he's a living legend.., but although i must say you're right ..like clapton john scotfield is the most overrated guitarplayer

  • Why overrated? How is he rated commonly and why is that wrong?

  • ?????

  • no way. how can you be overrated if know one talks about you, no one knows about Scofield except for people that care. Eric Clapton on the other hand is known by tons of people that don't know shit about music, so I could see how he could be considered overrated.

  • i always think Sco is underrated. He´s really one the best guitar players out there but not in the way a lot of listeners would realize

  • He's one of the great 3 jazz guitarists atm, but underrated? You probably don't know what it's like to study jazz and hang around with guitar students all day ;)

  • probaly not huh?

    hihi :)

  • Man I dig this cadenza.

    "Jazz is the art of surprise." Some jazz artists aim to play something delightfully unexpected. For those hating this piece and don't think it is music:

    Do you lose the chord progression when he starts using all those substitutions? If so, I can see how why you think this noise.

    But believe it or not, some people don't lose the progression and it actually makes musical sense to our ears!

    Or perhaps you don't thrill to this level of surprise. Personally I crave it.

  • I think a lot of this is free mate...not substituted chords.

    but it's ace...he swings so hard...Ornette would be proud

  • I love Scofield but...this does not gargle my marbles

  • I know John is a legendary guitarist and alway looking to better himself in some way but you've got to admit. This is painful, oh this hurts so bad.

  • hahahaha. how is he not the best jazz guitarist ever. list any valid reason, please.

  • ga-douche

  • You have to look at it from a musical standpoint. Plus, this is an out-of-context cadenza. Rarely do those sound above average. If you heard the complete song, it would come across as better I think. You need to pay attention to the development of the melody and harmony. If you try to listen to it as you would listen to pop music, you're fucked. It's an entirely different music.

  • why?

    are you down?

  • haha! I will not succumb to your incitement, but instead float placidly above on a cloud of self belief...

    go Scofield.

  • your blood boils, because you dont get it, that they dont get it, thats all. So your opinion isnt even valid ;)

    like you hear Johns heart playing, u could also hear others hearts crying.

  • This song is called "You Don't Know What Love Is"

  • One small section of what was probably a long piece of music - no context there to judge. But anyone who knows Scofield's playing will get it, the rest probably won't. Going to see him and Joe tonight at Sydney Opera House

  • Likeable.. more of a pat metheny guy myself but john certainly can play.. and butrunio, it's not their fault.. atonal music is very hard for the non experienced ear to appreciate, since we're fixed on the standard church rules.. Don't mind them, they WILL never appreciate this..

  • hey ricetees, I had no idea you were the authority on what is constituted as music and what is noise. In context, this is a cadenza to a tune, and it displays a masterful technique of chords and intervalic leaps on the guitar.

  • @Vettestrat sounds as if the tone is due to the camera, sco is the man

  • @Vettestrat And the tone is 'god awful' because of the cameras microphone.

  • @RiceTees

    maybe you are not musical enough to hear whats going on. ever thought about that?

  • @RiceTees If you were there in person Im sure you would hear/feel things differently.

  • @RiceTees yeah maybe to an undeveloped ear, a solo without chords backing him up

  • "just because he doesn't tear apart pentatonic riffs like your idol steve vai, doesn't mean he's not good. you need to get out more. "

    wow. Sco is very good, but Vai is God of electric guitar. how can you not see Vai's technical mastery of the instrument. Both are good, different genres

  • john scofield makes music. steve vai is, as labelled by frank zappa, a 'trick guitarist'. steve vai has mastered the guitar, john scofield IS the guitar.

  • dont hate what you dont get, some day u may be regreted. (kinda poem? jajaja) OPEN YOUR EARS THIS IS MUSIC

  • The fucking idiots that are criticizing this video aren't even considering the context of the clip. It was his solo break at the end of the tune.

  • Scofield looks a little like Ted Green

  • Sco's doing things that 20 or 30 years from now will be classic, studied things just like all the great improvisors. Every great in history evoked winces and cries of heresy when exploring new sonic territory.

  • is THAT a joke?

  • This is utterly pointless, self-indulgent, atonal, nonesense.

    Musical masturbation at its worse.

  • To each his own. but I like my "Own" a lot better.

  • Right..i repeat...F.... A....best damn guitarist.

  • fuckin A.... best damn guitarist

  • Scofield has fantastic swing feel and groove no matter what kind of music he plays... I love his "Time on my hands" and "Works For Me" album

  • I can see why this can seem strange to some non Jazz listeners since it´s out of context of the song he´s playing. I love this but probably would not have fifteen years ago when my only reference to music and guitarplaying was metallica. You won´t understand a language you´ve never heard.

  • Fake. Audio doesn't sync with video. Either that or the person who uploaded is a god damn retard. You be the judge.

  • i dont see or hear anything wrong with it. i think you're trippin. seems perfectly in sync to me.

  • in no way is this fake. maybe if you've never heard or seen john scofield

  • I still love him so much!He's brilliant modal player and he uses intervals and pentatonic scales so damn good!This looks like Schoenberg comping and 12tone scale...Nice!!!His sound is also unique and why the F some people have rights to see smth like this letalone to post a comment about it???

  • John Scofield is phenomenal:he's very unique and genial. But I think that Schoenberg is off topic in this way of playing end thinking music.

    Sorry for the english but i'm italian!

    Good night

  • well its just a matter of john scofield plays whatever the hell he wants to play. still warm and blue matter were great albums but so is ago go and his newer stuff. you cant really compare because there on different sides of the spectrum. ya know what i mean?

  • perhaps his playing doesn't speak to you, but you shouldn't be so blatantly mean about another person's artistic statement. I challenge you to learn this music and play it better that Sco. I doubt you can do half of what he can, so don't disrespect him please.

  • That was not very intertaining.............

  • Then there should be more jazz musicians who play like 6 year olds...

    What i like about Scofield is precisely the fact that his solos are never too complicated, too fast, or too "technicals". His style is limpid, he just plays one note after the other, always concentrating on the melody.

    Reaching this level of musical concision isn't very simple...

  • sounds like you missed the revolution ganoush

  • i would love to hear you play something like he does. and to call him overrated and a shitty guitar player??? you would have to be a shitty guitar player to be able to say he's a shitty guitar player because you obviously cant appreciate great stuff like this. its one thing to have your own opinion but puttin someone down for what you dont like is a douche bag thing to do

  • yo toco mejor

  • mmmmmm....no

  • he plays fine just that he looks hes having a stroke i kinda wanna run and help the guy out

  • your wit astounds me

    idiot

  • you suck

  • you suck

  • He was referring to John blowing away the field of audience members. I totally agree. BLOWfield

  • Ja ja ja, you don't know anything about music.

  • i can see your house from here with Sco n Metheny they know where theyre going for all you bashers! on the cover over the hill you can see the tips of what were the wtc...:( peace out from Montreal!

  • i can see your house from here with Sco n Metheny they know where theyre going for all you bashers! on the cover over the hill you can see the tips of what were the wtc...:( peace out from Montreal!

  • I think Jamey is really fat, he needs to lose some weight

  • ok kwhite...pick up a guitar, and learn this passage verbatim. post it on youtube. then we will see how terrible it is.

  • John is inventor, and one of the rare Jazz players who plays his very own harmonizations, which are now accepted as the whole Jazz standard. I like his music very much.

  • you are exactly right.

    i remember when i first heard johns sco, i was just getting into jazz, so it was a little too much for me. i had to learn what jaz was about before could appreciate him. needless to say now he is one of my favortie musicians.

  • Terrrible is how you have your ass!!! Ignorant!!!

  • This is only the last A section of what would was probably quite a long and rendition. How can you criticise it when you're listening to it completley out of context? Anyway, Sco doesn't care what anyone thinks.

  • good one ha!

  • Whilst you may personally dislike Sco's tone, it is a very subjective thing. Where you hear ugly, I (and, well, a lot of people) hear the most golden, lip-smacking EL84 tones of almost any player.

    How does he use his amp 'badly'!? And crudely saying Sco uses effects badly is a VERY risky thing to say... Have you heard 'Up All Night'? He is doing things no other player in the mainstream is doing. It might not be to your taste, but that doesn't therefore make it 'bad'.

  • Have you ever enjoyed a movie that had no tension or suspense in it? Have you ever walked away from a film that only did cliche, predictable things & said "I was entertained" Probably not. There's more to music that sounding "good." What's wrong with playing something ugly? It's exciting. It's a plot twist. Any great musician understands that as well as knowing when resolution is necessary. If you think sco's too ugly then listen to A go go or one of his more in albums. You have a poor mindset.

  • Suspense? All I felt like doing is get on stage to adjust his amplifier. Actually, my friend who was with me, felt the same way. I admit that he is not into pentatonic cliches, but god it is hard to stay till the end of the show. I will follow your advice and listen to A GoGo, so my mind will open up!

  • Yes, I really recomend A Go Go, it's my favourite Sco's album

  • Your comment sounds terrible man!!!. Listen what you're saying!!!

  • jazz in general isnt for "normal listeners." for the most part if you dont study music its hard to appreciate jazz.

  • Scofield won the guitarist of the year when he was attending Berklee . Music , at a certain point needs an audience. Of course, he is a talented player. How can he make such a great amp (Matchless) and decent guitar sounds so bad is beyond me. When I saw him in Montreal, he played a Vox AC-30 , and it was as bad. No matter what amp he plays, he is very consistent!

    On the subject of studies, this reminds me of abstrat paint. You need a Master degree to appreciate it. Of course.

  • there is a lot of meaning in the notes he is playing. it's a real acquired taste, and i'll echo the sentiments posted earlier that you need to learn the jazz language to fully understand what's going on. on your painting analogy, yes, it is a lot like that. seems snobby, but it's pretty much true. that said, i do not like scofield's playing or tone at all, but it doesn't mean i can discredit his playing when he obviously knows what he's doing.

  • Good point. This beeing said, a lot of jazz and fusion musician narrow down their audience to a very small group of people. Music has to carry emotion, passion, and move you. I studied music, jazz, rock and so on. The more I think about it, the more I think that music has to please and at the same time, musician have to respect themselves and should not have to play Mariah Carey or Celine all the time. Well, difficult choice.

  • I love Jazz, and I never had one music class. It's about feeling the music (stems true the blues). Academically Jazz players are sloppy as hell, but who cares. It's great music!

  • he knows every note that he's playing. this clip is pure musical output, directly from scofield. each note is played for a reason and pure genius is all that i hear.

  • toobdood123: haha)) you're funny,how old are you - 13?

  • just because he doesn't tear apart pentatonic riffs like your idol steve vai, doesn't mean he's not good. you need to get out more.

  • hahaha...the funniest part is probably, that Sco himself couldn't care less!

  • Shit is what you have in your brain!!! toobdood123

  • You're completely uneducated on that matter, if you had ever spent more then 20 seconds listening to Vai it'd be pretty obvious that he doesn't 'tear apart pentatonic riffs'

  • please tell me you're joking

  • Nope. I played the clip for a friend who's not familiar with the nuances of jazz (an untrained ear, in other words), and his comment was that it sounded like a little kid playing with a guitar in a music store.

  • let me guess,you probably don't like 18 year old scotch either.this isn't my favorite Sco solo but he is my favorite guitarist.Check him out 30 years ago with jazz greats Cobham , Duke and Johnson.

  • that says way more about you and your friend then it says about scos playing

  • toobdood123 a mature listener (not you) KNOW at glance this video is just the end part of the performance. A mature listener (not you)is able to get the sense and musicality under any circumstance...only a stupid (or a m